POSSIBLY BLOODLESS SUNDAY ‘64

Seven months after the Communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia, on October 11, I was arrested, and in December sentenced by State Court, an institution created after the takeover, to twenty five years in prison, being tried for political crimes. I had to wait for my bloodless revenge for more than sixty years when, in 2009, I was accepted to

American Mensa after a test where my score was 99 percentiles. It is safe to assume that I am the oldest person in history to qualify for Mensa. Most probably no one in my age range took the Miller Analogies Test; not many candidates reached my score.

What happened during the immensely long night where I never lost my way, friends?

This.

The charges were nothing unusual in Communist justice: espionage, military treason/high treason in American jurisdiction, with penalty reserved for crimes committed during war/, and using documents with a false name. For some time I was Oscar Rosner. In the sentence, the Court noted that the proper verdict should have been capital punishment, but the convenient option was not available obviously because I was not twenty one. Only sixty-two years later I would learn that I was wrong: the legal age for death sentence was 18. I took my few days to recover from my error. The Court had mercy on my dirty soul. I was one of the first cases tried after the putsch when the routine of hanging was not established yet, but later several people younger than me were hanged. Even Soviet Union did not execute youngsters under 21, but no one will teach former Czechoslovakia justice. How many people and how brutally had a nineteen-year-old boy murdered to deserve to stay in prison until he is forty-four?

In June 23, the Western Occupational Zones in Germany realized currency reform, and the next day Russians blockaded land, air, and water access to Berlin. They created a maximum security prison for more than two million people, whoever survived the defeat of the German Reich after unconditional surrender: kids, their grandparents and women. As in France after Napoleonic wars, there were no men in Germany beside in mass graves. Immediately the airlift would begin and soon the unsuspecting Russians were helplessly and furiously watching American transports appearing on horizon and circling Tempelhoff. In the future our Air Force would prove that it can maintain contact and supply any point on the Earth for unlimited time. Limited thinking of Russian strategist slowly realized that Americans were not only able to feed Berlin Burgers but in case of necessity to bring weapons to our forces besieging Magnitogorsk and advancing to Donbas. Even with modern technique there is no other country beside ours that could repeat the feat from 63 years ago.

Nine days later after the Russian nonsense I crossed the border river Morava, passed forty miles in train through the Russian Zone and, early in the morning of July 5 I knocked on the door of the Counter Intelligence Corps office in the American sector in Vienna, which, like Berlin was divided between four powers. Although Austria was first country occupied by Germany, Soviet Union treated it more or less as an enemy. Soon, with false documents I was on my way as a tourist on Uberreise /transfer/ to neutral Switzerland. My documents satisfied the Russian train patrol and near the famous ski-jumping bridge in Bishofshoffen I sneaked to safety of freedom.

I was placed in refugee camp Glasenbach where shortly after the war were interned prominent personalities who fled before the Russian occupation but were accused of cooperation with Germans. At the briefing I attracted attention of CIC officers because of my past. My friend, also a refugee confirmed my statements however unbelievable they seemed to be: for my age I had too many encounters with State Security in former Czechoslovakia: it was enough for a forty years old veteran. It seemed to me that there must have been someone else, also, who gave them more information about my escapades. In order not to seem to be a liar, each testimony was welcomed. I never thought that my age would be such an enemy. In Salzburg, the Mozarstadt I celebrated my twentieth birthday.

I impressed the agents with my knowledge of international politics. I remember we discussed the widening split between Tito and Stalin. We were both wrong-Russia did not attack Yugoslavia. I surprised them with talk about general Jovanovic shot on the border when escaping to Austria, about imprisoned communist leader Hebrang, Greece and ELAS AND ELAM, fighting against the government. I was asked to translate an anti-Communist flier for an organization of Czech refugees, the Free Crusaders. I was asked if I was not afraid to go to Slovakia. The suggestion surprised me, yet I assured the agents that if necessary I will go with pleasure: another pleasure. My mission was supposed to be spreading the Free Crusaders materials, and, as a side job, I should try to organize clandestine groups. I think this was a test to verify whether they could trust me with larger enterprises. The proof of the test was that I was not given any contacts: I had to show whether I could work independently. If I was successful, my next task probably would involve a contact with some organization already operating in the country.

I asked what the group established by me should do.

My operating officer, Stachovski, answered:”Exist. Nothing. Wait.” I must have sounded too enthusiastic, and my somewhat militant past and surely his combat experience as partisan during war helped him to read me thoroughly. He warned me if they have any report of the slightest violence in Slovakia while I am there, I better not come back. He explained me the virtue of patience. He expected as everybody war and promised me lot of shooting action replacing the leaflets. He stressed that with so many unguarded party buildings, Stalin busts, and posters smiling it are hard to resist, but once the war starts I will have combat freedom.

He said:”In fact, the war started in June. There are wars without shouting, but the West has to wait until Russian threats change to action. In the meantime we have to be content with propaganda. I promise you, Rosner, you will not miss anything.”

I did not like to wait Soviets take the first step. Aggressor has the advantage.

He pointed to Japan and Germany in WWII and Austria-Hungary and Germany in WWI.

I could counter with Germany attacking France in 1870, but I liked Stachovski too much to go that far. I did not want to look like a violent hero. I had an impression that he liked to do a clean job. He preferred to be a soldier in a double-breasted worsted suit. Because of my respect for him I kept my uncomfortable views for myself, but I am convinced the aggressor has advantage. Majority of strategist support the French and an outrace-to the utmost. Aggressor is morally condemned, but wars are not fought in ethic classes, although there is some truth in the belief that World War I was won in Eton.

From my statements on file he was aware I was few times in jail and that in Vienna I gave some political information. Beside my friend he probably consulted other refugees who might prove or disprove my activities in Slovakia. The political information I gave in Vienna was insignificant but provided my capability for observation and organization of actions. The actions were my past adventures, rather juvenile adventures without any intelligence value. Again, their value consisted in the fact some of them were undertaken by a seventeen-years old. I remember for many years one axiom: he who in twenties is not a revolutionary is not man. In 1946 when I was 17 the local police learned I had buried a cache of ammunition in our backyard. At that time I was in jail for having sung with my friends anticommunist songs at a dance. I was led with police escort to the cache to dig the ammunition out. Soon my pick hit metal. The officer warned me to be careful: the sound of metal hitting metal was no pleasant. He retreated to a safer distance, angry and scared. All my treasure was without fuses and could explode only in fire. Mostly I dug out the shells for mine throwers. I was afraid the guns might get rusty underground and hid them in a dry attic so they are ready for operation when the war starts and we would fight behind the lines until Americans come. The war was almost reality.

The charges for the illegal concert were dismissed. Our defense that we were singing what the band was playing was true but was meant as ridicule than serious argument. It was idea of my mother. Later I was arrested in connection with an illegal student organization Slovak State Secret Service at the Gymnasium and led by Michal Stifle. I ended with few months of jail which I had served while waiting for the trial.

My third imprisonment was serious. I attempted to escape to Austria and was arrested few yards of the border by waiting border guards. I was not betrayed, though, but someone whom I had told about my plans talked too much. Up today I cannot understand why I choose to cross on land rather than swim in the absolutely save border river which was my playground. I was living less than three miles from it and knew the area thoroughly. Moreover the place was practically unguarded. This adventure created danger for my mother who had given me her savings and the password to withdraw money to finance my start abroad. To protect her in case I was caught we mane arrangement that after few days when I was expected to be safely in Austria she supposed to report me and the missing money to the police. It was precaution in case in few days I would not be in Vienna, but in jail. When police discovered the money, I insisted I took the savings book without my parents’ knowledge. In order to save me from prison my mother was ready to confess which meant she would have been charged as an accessory before the act. The result will be prison for both of us. We were fighting to the end. When the judge asked her whether she gave me the savings book my eyes were pleading with her. She hesitated, but in the end said I took it without her knowledge. Fortunately, neither the investigators nor the judge asked themselves how I could withdraw the money if she did not give me password.

After the release, I came home and enrolled in YMCA night college classes to earn some credit and to satisfy my parents, but I always wanted to study abroad. Five month after my release came the Communist takeover and we are back at the Counter Intelligence Corps entrance.

This was the background that influenced American intelligence. With my perfect credentials and my familiarity with politics, I became the prime candidate for underground work in the Russian sphere. My age spoke against me, but this deficiency was balanced by my adult past. We finalized the details. My operator once again explained my task and gave me address of a contact in the Austrian border town of Marchegg, a railroad man named Lascar who was of Slovak origin. He would assist me to board a freight train and the rest was in my hands. I suggested the river crossing I knew well but Stachovski warned me that the border changed in last months and new fortification were built daily and stressed that I would not recognize the area although I had known it before. He also assured me after my return to Salzburg I would have another and more important mission waiting.

I was curious what the new action will be. Sabotage was out of question. For Americans, sabotage was the last means to reach a goal. It was always risky, even during hostilities, for innocent civilians. When resistance blows a bridge the saboteurs cannot be sure a military transport crashes in the river or one carrying workers returning home from swing shift: and there are much more civilian trains than tank transports. It is possible that during the last war more civilians were killed by violent actions behind the enemy lines than military personnel, and is questionable whether the enemy material loses balance the books. Klak, Lidice, Latakia, Oradour sur Glane and caves on Via Ardetina near Rome come to mind. As for the enemy loses, Heydrich was the highest German authority killed during the war, but was his life worth the lives of hundreds Czechs, not one of them a soldier and only three directly participating in the assassination.

The threat of imminent war created in my action-possessed young mind a thought that enormously differed from spreading the Crusaders leaflets. I do not know whether I was courageous, but Stachovski thought I was and that was what counted. With his thought resolved I would never disappoint the Corps. When I shocked him with my newest adult idea, the experienced intelligence officer who, by my thorough deduction during the war must have worked behind the German lines as partisan leader, the combat veteran looked at me as if I asked for his valet. I was half his age, and familiarity with some subjects placed me ahead of other youngsters, but still, this time he gazed at me and did not know what to think, the less to say.

I suggested creating of network of people in Slovakia who, during the coming war, would help the downed Allied pilots to safety, and, if possible, back to their bases. As colonel Hogan used to say, “It was done before”. At present the cells would sleep, but once the bombers emerged from the clouds, they would be activated and receiving support from resistance groups that would be formed at the beginning of hostilities my network could save the unlucky pilots. During the last war such groups successfully operated in France, Yugoslavia, and some other countries. Maquis in France and Mihajlovich and Tito’s partisans saved numerous fliers. In France the smuggling of the downed pilots was helped by a few hundred SOF/Special Operation Forces/ dropped by the British in France. They smuggled the lucky fliers to Switzerland or Spain. As for Yugoslavia, Randolph Churchill participated in the effort. After I explain all the history of ways to save the pilots and he recovered he asked me: “What will you do with them?” “Send them to their bases. Like the maquis”. “Through Germany or Poland?” I had thought of it. All countries surrounding Slovakia were occupied by Germany or were under Reich influence. At present the closest Western territory was about 130 miles from Slovak capital Bratislava. Providing that the Allies would advance it will be less. “Providing they would retreat, it will be more: maybe 500 miles”, Stachovski countered. I was such a fanatic that I could admit American would give up a square inch, but I did not argue for there is no possibility to lead the men through Austria occupied by Germans no matter whether the Yankees were only few miles from Morava river. The solution was to guide the fliers through acceptable Hungary to Yugoslavia. In Hungary obtained help many refugees from Czechoslovakia before.

Initially, it never occurred to me to participate in the enterprise, but Stachovski suggested I had friends in Slovakia who will trust me rather than a stranger, but I tried to convince him I was too young. Friends from my school would trust me, but not older people. The issue remained unsolved for he told me he has no authority to approve such enterprise and has to consult his superiors. Nevertheless he promised to support my plan with all his heart.

In 1944, I was watching a damaged American Liberator of Flying Fortress, that later would crash near our town, and counted the parachutes bringing the crew down. They should have been nine or ten, but there were only seven descending to Zohor. From the distance I hoped that I was mistaken. I was not, only seven survived. Two were found dead, either the parachute did not open or they were killed before they had had chance to bail and soar with their fellows towards life.

Until the end of the war, the two of them were resting in our graveyard behind the church, only later they were identified and transported to a military cemetery. I have read a copy of an article from their local newspaper about them describing many details from their life in a well written report.

On All Souls Day some of my friends and I decided to keep kind of memorial on the cemetery for them. One of us was an excellent sail plane pilot while I was limited to ground training once the instructor Slamka found out I was not even 15. I bought a representative wreath and after we assembled in the front of the church of Saint Margaret we marched to the grave where we solemnly and reverently placed the wreath, reflected and prayed.

Maybe in the depth of my memories lurked instinctively the two missing parachutes when I stupefied my operating agent with my plan which seemed to be much superficial. It was impossible to plan the details for no one could predict where the front will be in particular time. In 1948 the closest American position from the Slovak most western border was about 200 miles, from the farthest it was more than 450. To all my doubts I found a pragmatic answer: Maquis did not care where the front was.

With Stachovski we frequently discussed Tito's widening split with Russia. He was enthusiastic about the Yugoslav leader, but I believed that in case of the war between West and Soviet Union Tito will fight along Stalin. As for my suggestions he told me his superiors could not approve my plan without Air Force involvement but I saw he was supporting me completely. The landing of a man hanging on a parachute is observed by hundreds and around large cities by thousand eyes among who will be at least one member of the clandestine organization who will bring the pilot to a safe house. I have some questions, but also answer: partisans and Maquis did not care again.

At our last meeting Stachovski mostly repeated earlier instructions. He said that CIC was enthusiastic about the network I had suggested and that after my return from the current mission they will arrange meeting with Air Forces where in my presence we will analyze the plan. I was provided with Czechoslovakian ID bearing name Oscar Rosner which I had memorized some time ago and practiced to the extent that in became an automatic response. I had to forget the name as was bearing for twenty years. He stressed that forgetting own name is more difficult than learning a new one. I would travel from Salzburg through Vienna to Marchegg, an Austrian border town. I had to be careful: from the more than 250 long voyages a substantial part led through the Russian territory. In Marchegg on the rail station we will meet with Lascak, my guide, and probably man connected to the Corps. His strategic position on the border was invaluable, but lethally dangerous because he operated in the Soviet Zone. Any secret agent in field is like a person walking at night through mine infested area, an agent in enemy territory walks the same mine trap but in addition is blindfolded. I had to memorize his name and not to write it down. In the underground all names and addresses have to be memorized: it is better to forget them then to write them down. Stachovski warned me not to try to change names. It would help to remember name Lascak to write down Lancak but there might exist a person of that name who could run into troubles. I asked how many people had he led across the border before. My operator said he cannot reveal any more about him, but told me he was as reliable as I. His name sounded Slavic and Stachovski confirmed he was Slovak. I did not press him more since I could not guarantee how I would resist under eventual torture if arrested. He did not own any allegiance to his original country but courageously worked for her freedom.

I did not need a guide. Marchegg is about four miles from my village Zohor and I was familiar with the area. When I escaped to Austria three months ago a crossed Morava river about three miles from the city. Stachovski asked me to be careful since in these three months the border was armed, towers were built and barbed wiry obstacle was erected. It became truth sometimes later, but now it was still easy to escape to Austria where the problems started for she was occupied by the Red Army. Lascak helped me to climb freight train carrying heavy machinery as part of war reparation and therefore accompanied by Russian soldiers. I hid under the tarp and waited. I was not scarred at all, rather impatient. Lascak returned with a lamp and told me the transport should start the trip to Chop on Russian border shortly. In the meantime I spotted a flashlight, most probably a sentry. At that moment I wished I had chosen to swim across the safe Morava rather.

Finally, the train started slowly moving. Slovakia was one mile away. Train rumbled on a short bridge. The noise it was making on the metal bridge was deafening, the result of metal-on-metal effect. Half way across the bridge I was home. Home? Soon I observed the lights of the station in Devinska Nova Ves, the border town in Slovakia. I had to leave the train before it reached the station. I had no time to think too long. The distance between the town and the bridge is short. It was past midnight and I could not see well. A flashlight would not help since I could not use it. I had to jump blindly. I had experience. For several years I travelled to school by train and never missed to jump from train going faster than this one. Only difficulty was I did not see where I will land. Suddenly, I was on the ground. The momentum carried me a little, but I did not even fall.

I did not risk boarding the train so I walked to visit my mother and father, but we did not wake up my sister and brother. From Zohor I travelled to Bratislava. I was betrayed by two people who were number three and four on my list of potential members of my network. I do not believe I made mistake. I am convinced that during eventual war both would have been happy to risk their lives to help Allies. Before both worked as secretaries of the sworn anti-Communist party. After the war, a successor party with the same ideology was established and both were secretaries again. Where I made a mistake? Nowhere. Their credentials were immaculate. They had known me for some time as I had worked as volunteer for the same party , wrote few articles for their daily, and aspired to become full time employee. After the election in 1946 I received a substantial financial award for singlehandedly bringing Zohor to end up as one of the two communities in Slovakia where the party beat the communist to second place. For these reasons I do not mention their name so that their descendants would not lose some of their respect for them,

At my trial one of them testified that by denouncing me he fulfilled his patriotic duty. It was meant for me to understand under what pressure he was when with his political background he had to switch his allegiance. Once, in a literary work on Robespierre I wrote "How much is possible to betray for a bowl of lentils?"

After having received the call, three agents followed me and fortunately arrested me as amateurs instead of following me, but their first question was professional: “ Do you have a weapon?”, and second when did I come. One of them, Cermak, previously Porges I had known from previous arrests. My first thought was that in arresting my before I had contacted others I saved them from serious troubles. We were on a crowded Bratislava street and the best director of a detective movie could not shot a better scene in the best criminal movie. Cermak knew my passion for weapon collecting and whole my past: he frisked me as much as in a public street was possible and all the time had his hand in his right pocket. Next time I would meet him as fellow prisoner when wave of counter Jewish measures rolled through the State Security organization. I wondered how they knew about me especially that I had come from abroad when besides my mother I had spoken only with two secretaries in the General Secretariat of the Freedom Party.

Two months later I was sentenced to 25 years of prison and transferred to the strictest maximum security prison in former Czechoslovakia. Leopoldov was a seventeen Century fort and was named after Kaiser Leopold. It was never conquered and never besieged. To conquer it was nearly impossible. I was followed by the director of the Bratislava jail Michalik who replaced the Government Counselor, an attorney who was the current director. There was an escape from the massive fort and, as usually, the least responsible official had to go. As an intellectual, the human Counselor did not fit into the working class quilt. During one of my previous arrest Michalik slapped me few minutes after I was brought up to his office from the police, before I was even admitted and registered. In Leopoldov it took a little longer-maybe two days when he for the first time inspected our one hour exercise. Like Cermak and most my enemies, he never forgot me. From hundreds of talking inmates he picked me for punishment. In jail talking during exercise was prohibited so that accomplices could not coordinate their statements before the trial, but in prison it was permitted since all the inmates were already sentenced and it was not expected that they would not speak for twenty-five years and he knew it, but could not find any other pretext: it was hard to see any violation of rules in a simple walk around the yard and I was not doing anything else than the others. If the talking was against the rules, he might as well assign to the “report” four hundred men.

On Friday all reported prisoner were one by one brought to his office and he pronounced his sentence. Two of us ended with the hardest punishment: I and Jozef Kovacic who was with me in Austria, returned as an agent, and testified against me: he did in so skillfully telling stories unbelievable to a degree that the prosecutor must have been sorry to have him call. Michalik knew him also and neither forgot him either. We were sent for a week to the solitary with the dark cell and food every other day. It was an unheard punishment except for an escape attempt. It gave me an opportunity to test my courage or better, my audacity. Kovacic was in nearby cell. Once, returning from a short exercise, passing his cell, I managed an impossible feat. I threw few cigarettes into his cell directly under the eyes of the carefully observing guard. Kovacic insisted I hypnotized the guard for our eyes were locked and I did not move my hand and the cigarettes were hypnotized also for they flew from my hands on own power. It is possible that the guard, knowing how desperate smoker Kovacic was closed both eyes and let me help me. If this happen I am still proud since I could not anticipate the guard’s passivity. He was dangerous because of his talent for choosing for punishment people who deserved it most. He end came as his arrival. There was another escape from the escape proof fortress and he was fired from the prison guard system and sent to civilian life.

The adventure I cherish most is the one when if discovered I would have been beaten to death as if the more dangerous action the more pleasure I had. It is kind of perversity, kind of political masochism. It involved the no less important persons than president of Slovak State during war Monsignor Sr. Jozef Tiso and Minister of Interior Alexander Mach. During my previous arrest I was imprisoned in the juvenal section of the jail that was isolated from the general population. As prominent personalities , both statesmen were isolated together with two brothers, president’s secretaries. The juveniles were assigned to clean their cells when the Monsignor Tiso and Mr. Mach were on exercise yard. Once I wrote to each of them a letter and placed it next to the toiled on the place which was invisible from the door. I remember my typical sentence: “The Slovak youth is behind you.” What was so important in my deed? That no one else did in but me. One of my cellmates told me he had smuggles also a letter to the president while a police officer. I have no reason to doubt his assertion. Without diminishing his courageous act there is one difference. As an officer he had easier access to Dr. Tiso than a prisoner. But he deserves full credit and his merit is equal to that of me.

President was brutally murdered by the Court even before the communist take-over in an act of Shakespearean dimensions: a foul murder. Minister mach was sentenced to life in prison and less than three years after I smuggled him the letter I would meet him in Leopoldov. I joined him at the walk and my first question was whether he found the message. He was so surprised that he almost stopped to walk. He gazed at me and asked: “It was you? “ After he regained fully his speech he told me that both of them found the letters. On their walk next day they by prisoner signs asked each other whether they received the message and both confirmed they did. But indicated the possibility it was a provocation.

Minister Mach spent more than twenty years in prison, and after his release he would write his memoires, which were supposedly stolen, probably because they compromised several present Communist leaders: and there was lot to compromise. I learned that his memoirs were published. As a precaution he might make more copies or wrote a new book perhaps. No information about his memories is confirmed, though. If they exist I wonder whether he mentioned my letters which were not mentioned for history but to give support suffering innocent statesmen threatening with death for leading their nation safely through the war.

From Leopoldov I was transferred to a Forced Labor Camp in the Jachymov area and worked in uranium mines, one of them being Svornost, from Madame Sklodowska-Curie obtained uranium for her experiments that would bring her twice the Nobel Prize. I fourteen months I tried to escape twice. The first one was rather exploratory and proved to be technically impossible without help from outside. The second one was feasible and promising. I was unanimously selected the leader of more than ten fellows. We were digging a tunnel under the most difficult conditions under a hill created by dumping the rocky offal from the Central Camp Bratrstvi/Brotherhood/mine. Since the hill was not compact but consisted of rocks, the roof was unstable and once a while collapsed. There was always danger of cave-in. We were too many to keep the secret, and in the end the authorities learned names of all of us. The optimal number of involved digger is the minimum necessary for the operation which is four: one digger in the front, one pulling the container with the dug material and two to disperse it under the floor: I am talking of our tunnel, in others the material can be dispersed outside. Later, when the tunnel is longer there will be needed more men. With more people we could work two shifts and progress faster , but the rush was the reason that almost all attempts of tunnel escape failed, and not only in Czechoslovak camps. We were taken to the State Security to Strakonice, but surprisingly there were not any consequence. After my first attempt to escape as a punishment my partner and I were transferred to another camp and now, in a much more serious preparation the punishment was the same. We expected to be tried and I still have no idea why we were not. I remember Strakonice often. The most effective contact between prisoners was through the plumbing system. All to do was to remove by rag the water from the toiled and the prisoner was able to talk to the cells above, below and everywhere. Here I overheard discussion between two of my five friends accused of killing a guard at the camp Marianka during an escape attempt: it was total accident, unprepared, unintended, not discussed, not thought about: legally not premediated, not a murder, manslaughter in second degree. But they knew better. One of them, during war a captain in

Czechoslovakian Armored Brigade in England was either killed or committed suicide during their encirclement. By voice I recognized one of the prisoners as Boris Volek, a well liked, intelligent and quiet boy about 22 years old. One of them asked: “What do you think they will do with us ? “ “ Probably they will hang us.” They did, all five of them.

Then came the execution on Nikos Belojanis outside of Athens. His case had nothing to do with the distant Czechoslovakia at all. After the war in Greece, the pro-communist underground group EAM and its armed terrorist units, ELAS led the resistance against the Government. Belojanis was the General Secretary of the Communist Party KKK which in Greece was illegal. I communist hierarchy system he was head of the party. When the violence of ELAS increased, the Government struck back and ninety- four ranked rebel murderers, including Belojanis, were brought to a military trial that sentenced him and the guiltiest of them to death. The international communist machinery organized worldwide protests again the sentence: significantly, the protests ignored the others and were exclusively concentrated on Belojanis. The fellow travelers, kings, prime ministers, writers and intellectuals marched, and not only in communist countries. Marches, rags with worthless signature of naive scapegoats for whom name Belojanis might have mean a mountain in Himalayas tortured the valiant Greek Government. The campaign resembled the robbers, murderers, perjures and anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti , Scottsboro and Rosenbergs affairs. It is noteworthy that these three cases occurred in our Country. The Greeks did not relent, and on March30, 1952, early in the morning Belojanis and three-some sources say eleven-rebels were executed.

There were rumors that in retaliation in former Czechoslovakia and probably in all Soviet satellites all political prisoners sentenced to death that were waiting for decision of the Supreme Court or for clemency had their applications and petitions denied and were hanged. There is no evidence to support this conclusion. It is possible that shortly after the executions in Greece the clemency petitions were rapidly denied and confirmed by the Supreme Court, though. The immediate retaliation was not necessary: one day most of the sentenced to death would die anyway on the beam sticking out of a wall in the basement of the Pankrac prison in Prague.

But reprisals came. I was about eighty political prisoners collected from various uranium mines camps in Jachymov to the Central Camp Bratrstvi. It was impossible to find any key to the selection: repeated escapes, long sentences, no escapes and sentences of three years were puzzling. It reminded of the anecdote from the war. When from the prisoners train someone escaped, in order to have the full count, the Soviet pragmatic escort’s grabbed at the next station the station master who had no idea why he was suddenly on his way Kolyma. Probably, the Russian bureaucracy system ,irresponsibility, and mind factor created the equation with all unknown and no one factor defined. I fell into two categories-repeated escape and 25 years sentence-but if they had brought all of us with these qualification the number would be in thousands for in Jachymov were then thousands of prisoners.

The guards with submachine guns loaded us in two buses and lead with an armored carrier with machine gun we were on the way. Where? Once the night arrived we found out the buses were heading east: the smarter realized it before the vehicles started for in the opposite direction was our best friend, the land of Adenauer and the American Zone. But God did not granted our prayers the driver get lost and end up in Nuremberg or what was left of it after the war. We figured we probably will not be shot since we were travelling through dense forest missing the proper occasions to offer us the bathroom break: nothing pointed to some action. The guards were sleepy and calm, no screaming and not any threats at all. Still better, there were abandoned mines around Jachymov offering serious graves. There were four prisons east of us: Pankrac, Bory, Mirov, Ilava and Leopoldov . After Leopoldov there were only two prisons of consequence, Lublanka and Butyrky in Soviet Union. I forgot Gulag. After few hours we bypassed Prague.

We landed in Leopoldov unfortunately without any escape accidents. They placed us in so called New Solitary, a former military prison. Till the building would become crowded each of us was alone. I believe the whole idea of reprisals lays with the Soviet adviser to the Czechoslovak Security, colonel or general of NKVD/Narodnij Comitet Vnutrenych Del-National Committee of Internal Affairs/. More explanatory word would be “Infernal.” After Stalin’ demise he was shot together with the head of Soviet security, the child molester and rapist Beria. We accepted both deaths with bloodthirsty satisfaction. For few days we were in interrogation centers mode. We did not see anything beside hand at the six inches by six inches communication window when a prisoner brought food. We did not hear a human voice. In few months I would lose at least thirty pounds so talk about food is a considerable exaggeration. I must look like a prisoner from Solovky, originally a Russian monastery, lately the first Soviet extermination camp. It became famous for three reasons: as a historical monastery, as a fatal destination and as an object of a song made famous by the basso Fyodor Tschailyapine or sometimes Tschailyapine: “Kak v Solovkach nam rozkazival inokchestniy Pitirim. “ – “Like told us in Solovky honorable Pitirim.” I the whole United States I was not able to locate one recording of the song, and I believe it is not different in Europe.

The regime approached the tortuous methods I remembered from the interrogation. At anytime a guard or the snitch trustee would knock on the door: “Thirty. Fifty or any other threatening number. It meant the number of squats the victim had to make while loudly counting. Among the poor men were bishops, generals and other profession that imply the person was old: there are not twenty years bishops, and they were forced to squat like I. Even the younger suffered because of the micro portion of food, and then what about fifty or sixty-years old. And I remember, there were never ordered less than thirty squats. The rations calculated on the border of survival were product of Moscow Lublanka prison. There are various methods of inflicting pain and hunger is no less effective than a kick of a hit with fist in the face. Then the consul or almost a consul of a communist country although not an orthodox, a Yugoslav envoy to Czechoslovakia cut his vein and bled to death. Later I would inherit his death cell and discovered brown spots on the walls despite the cell were repainted. The brown spots reminded of the brown spots to which the guide in Saint Bartholomew Orthodox chapel in Prague reverently pointed when I as tourist visited the chapel’s underground. Here the parachutists who had assassinated general Heydrich, the highest German official killed by the resistance perished by the hands of SS and some of them by own hands. Their escape tunnel into the sewer system having failed they had not any chance. Incredible, there is no any plague, any monument on the place where the grenade hit Heydrich’s Mercedes Benz. That in Prague, a city where each accordion player seems to have some kind of memorial.

The death of the consul did not change mummy of the prison life conditions. In the end the pressure came from outside. We did not know, but when suddenly all communication between the families and the inmates were cut off mothers, wives and children wondered why their monthly letters were not panicked. They were used to temporary interruption of contact due to disciplinary punishment and realized there was now a markable difference. Some families had met in Jachymov at the rare visits and kept in contact afterwards: some of them once a while met and exchanged support. When for longer time the family did not receive any letter and wrote to the prison administration they always received an answer with identical explanation: bad behavior and bad attitude to the work. As a result of the inquiry the authorities some time allowed to write home a carefully censured answer. All such interruption in contact was temporary and after one-two month the letter arrived again, but this time tens of relatives stopped write at the same time and the prison officials did not respond to the inquiries for months. Were we dead? Were we in Siberia? With the communist regime it was not only possible but probable. Uncomfortably complaints and unanswerable questions flooded the office of President Klement Gottwald, Ministry of Interior, and other institutions. Where the stereotypical was : “ For the serious and repeated violation of rules and low work ethic his privileges were temporarily suspended. Yours captain Horak.” Did the missing inmates violated the rules and lowered their performance at the same time? It would happen but in 1955 after the conference between the Soviet Union, USA, England and France in Geneva when camps experience spate of strikes. I did not take part. After all I had written about myself it must seem rather surprising, something like a treason. When the strike erupted I was already a month in the solitary for either a hunger strike or other serious and repeated violation of rules and to my horrible pain I missed the opportunity of my life which would never repeat itself. After so many years I still feel the same undiminished pain as if I cowardly failed to support my friends. The fact that I could not help it does not diminish my compunction when I argue with my conscience. Like a masochist I almost envy the beating they were exposed to while all my support was screaming the window: “ Murderers, murderers! “ I do not suppose anybody but former prisoners understand this paragraph, but truth is not always understood.

The disturbing lack of communication increased the worry that we were victims of a communist foul play. In Great Escape there is a scene where the British prisoner Stalag senior officer after a well documented mass escape is summoned to the German Commandant’ office. The commandant announces that the escapees were killed when resisting arrest. The Force officer asks how many. “All of them. “ “All fifty?” “All fifty? No one wounded?” After the war with one exception all the perpetrator were traced to the crime committed in former Czechoslovakia, convinced and hanged. The missing Gestapo official was arrested almost three years later and received prison sentence although as guilty as the rest. It brings me to the Malmedy massacre from WW II where numerous American prisoners of war capture during the last German offensive of the war were dastardly killed. Most of the murderers were sentenced to death, but all charges were dismissed by higher Court. The defense offered evidence that their confession were forced by violent means, they were subjects to mock execution and to all possible torture. Like the Gestapo in the escapees case inexplicably they cheat the executioner. The question is not To be or not to be, but why the American interrogators considered it necessary to use torture at all. There was plenty evidence for each of the suspects to receive ten death sentences: the more accomplices the easier the case. Willingly or accidentally they certainly implicated each other sufficiently to be found guilty. NKVD argued that torture was justified because what they learned was only truth and was supported by spontaneous admissions. In our country the answer is in T-shirts: Those who do not play by rules win. Moreover, the clever defense team managed to insinuate that the poor Americans might have been trying escape. Due process in its fullest application freed the guilty and left the victims in their graves. When the number of requests for explanation outbalanced the authorities will to remain silent we were given piece paper and practically under guns forced to write from this temporary grave cheerful letters home. After my resurrection I would read some of my letters and felt the spirit preserved between lines: relatives of prisoners learn also to read the insinuations and discover the codes contained in them. I never doubted the time comes I will read my messages: I never doubt it as I did not doubt that I will beat communism. It seems as if I steal from general de Gaulle who after fall of Paris grandiloquently announced: “Today we liberated Paris with assistance of American forces. Only such man could become president and abandon Algeria.

One of my many most beloved poems is “Zhdi minya” by otherwise nauseatingly incarnate procommunist Soviet writer and poet Konstantin Simonov. Beside my native language and my adopted English/several version/ I took pains to discover and made copies of it in several other language, including the Russian original. In free translation it ends with “Wait for me when for others nobody is waiting anymore. Don’t drink with them when at memorial pray for my soul. Wait for me and it will be Sunday and I will return because you knew how to wait like no one else did.” This is compilation from various translation and original. I liked the verse “Thousands of deaths will not kill me.” “Wait for me” is one of the most popular Russian poems of all times-communism or not communism-. It was written in February 1942 in a train when Simonov was sent as a correspondent to the front and when he arrived the front was not there pushed by the German Blitz. It was dedicated to his girlfriend, a comic actress whom he would marry the same year. This is about my mothers of all.

In my first letter after the disruption I assured her I will certainly return and asked her to wait and to be patient and not to listen to those who do not believe she will ever see me again. As she always wished I will finish college and help with school to my fifteen-year old brother. I made more promises what I will do. It must look as if I was on vacation someplace on Majorca or on Riviera and was flying home tomorrow. Never before nor after the isolation did I write such tender letter, even when I was in relatively acceptable labor camp. There were so many insinuations on the fall of communism and the indications of the horrible truth that I cannot stop to wonder the censure let it pass without me being thrown in the hole. It appears the more brutal conditions the more I loved my poor mother and the more I love her the more I needed her love. Twenty-two years later-six years after I arrived to America I finished my education and with immodest pride I announced fulfillment of my promise. My father was as happy as my mother. Maybe he believe I will come back more than she. They visited me alternatively. During my stay in labor camp I committed so many trespasses that I was permitted during all the time only on visit and father let her go.

The pressure of our relative caused the sovereignty of the persecution to relax and the whip was shortened, but the end came in one day. An epidemic of typhus in the Leopoldov New Solitary caused a panic. It was not an epidemic of the  "Martin Arrowsmith",  "San Michele" or "The Betrothed" proportion but typhus can spread very quickly among prisoners as well as among the guards who could spread the epidemic in their communities. All of us were checked, one by one, in the office by civilian doctors and when I was scared I was finished with adventures I found I had way to go. I could not resist such a rare occasion as mass chaos and unsure faces of the threatened guards to help the medicine. When the doctor was measuring my temperature I rubbed the thermometer in order to add few degrees to it. The guard caught me in the middle of the act and while not happy under circumstances he refrained from punishment. I believe it was the only time during my sojourn in various houses of imprisonment I was forgiven: the guards were this time in mode of panic, and not an organized one. It was never clearly established how isolated persons who were allowed to leave their cells only for less than hour exercise where any personal contact was prevented could be infected with typhus. It might have been a new prisoner who brought it, but he was able to infect only his cellmate providing he had on, and nobody else: someone might have to get infected when visiting the infirmary, but again, could not gave it to anybody else. It is also possible that the prisoners during the walk inhaled the typhoid bacillus freely moving in the air.

Because of an early discovery by the prisoner-doctor Dr. Krbec, in civilian life a prominent authority and quick and radical steps to suppress the disease there were no fatalities. The bureaucracy was not allowed to interfere and the doctors’, both the civilian and of prison orders were respected. It was not always that way. An old man from Eastern Slovakia was infected with botulin where about 63 % if of patients die. It is vitally important to give the patient doses of Types A and B antiserum as soon as possible, no later than within 24 hours other ways he will not survive. Originally botulism was suspected in the death of president Harding. In the present case our doctors, Dr.Krbec and Dr. Smid, both serving long sentences explained the necessary steps to proper prison authorities, stressing the immediate need for the antitoxin which is available in hospital. I guess the closest source was no farther than 20 miles. Following the procedure, the prison office filled the proper forms as when requesting Aspirin and proceed according to protocol. Repeatedly the doctors appealed to the officers warning them that the man will die within hours if not treated, but to no avail. Maybe the office thought the doctors were bluffing. The antiserum arrived when the prisoner was dead and it was not murder .

Following typhus we need not be afraid of the knock on the door and the squats were abandoned to the jury of history. One letter a month was permitted as were less frequent visits. Rations were increased and the New Solitary became a regular prison, if there is such animal. The most welcomed change was that slowly the inmates were transformed to so called common cell which housed around 30 men. One of the last transferred was I. But I returned to the Solitary frequently for a week or month since I could not get rid of my bad habit to cause troubles. In some of the actions I was accused as being the instigator and I have to admit the authorities were not wrong. Under any pretext, legitimate or provoked we declared hunger strike which meant automatically the solitary. I remember one prisoner had died in Leopoldov following more than a year long refusal to eat. He was force fed but this treatment obviously cannot last forever. Forced feeding was not practiced since our strikes did not last longer than three weeks.

Once I returned from solitary after isolation because of hunger strike when I noticed a few friends assembled in front of the office in the common cells section. They told me they were about to be escorted to the holes: they declared a hunger strike. Without asking about the reason I joined them and returned to the punishment cells in the solitary for maybe another week.

I have read several theories on how long a person last without food. I laughed when I saw in a serious newspaper picture of union secretary on wheelchair after three days on hunger strike. It was a nauseating and lowly fraudulent pretension, pure publicity act. As for my experience, I did touch neither food nor any liquid for six days without any difficulties. One of my friends were making handstands after ten days without eating and I am convinced I could, too, but I never learned how to do them.

We are coming to the saddest day of my imprisonment, a day that helped me to understand murder. That day a guard solemnly handed me a telegram. My good father had died and I will never be able to thank him for his visits and the love he had showed me: end of fishing together. My mother naively asked me to come to the funeral. The telegram was delivered to me a week after my father was buried in Zohor when it was too late to bother the authorities . Such request were routinely denies anyway. More inmates lost their parents while in prison, but my loss was unbearably painful. Shortly before his death my father received the visit permit what would have been our last meeting. I suspect he knew he was dying and he wished see me once more, just once more and then never again. He wanted to die and take the memory of his son with him to the second world.

Had I known he was coming I would have avoid any troubles since in that case the permit could be cancelled for any minor offense. I violated some rule again and the permit was recalled. Recently promoted lieutenant Durica came to my cell and announced the news. He told me because of my trespass the permit was cancelled. He described how my father had come to the gate and he, Durica turned him back; he could not see me for I was punished. My father was a meek person who left the house only go fishing: I do not remember he went once to a restaurant. He was not my mother who was a fighter and would have argue and scream on a general, not only on the lieutenant. Father probably just turn around and realized that he will have to die without taking part from me. Communist revenge rolls over graves. I remember the Ballad of Reading and best I remember : “Everybody kills how he knows”. And now I know, but I do not kill. I only remember also from a hundred years old magazine Svetozor: “It is possible not to forgive the dead.” This I do.

Two weeks before my father’s death, in October 1956, Hungary erupted in a revolution. Sixty Andrassy Place, the seat of the Secret Police failed in its mission. Members of the Allamvedely Osztaly, the Hungarian Cheka, known as Avos were hunted like tigers in an African Safari, only they were not tigers. Easily recognized by identical yellow shoes, a mark of recognition that turned against them, they were beaten and some hanged on the Budapest baroque lamp post. “Lampa langos arvanyi benta kapunal, lampa langos arwanyi mindig otanal…” are the words from Hungarian version of Lilly Marlene- “old lamp was always standing, standing always there."     A The lamp did not last for two weeks, until Soviet tanks crushed Hungarian motorcycles, but many people missed it. And protests against barbarians spread from progressive countries through the second world to the third world. On threshold of death my father saw the communists punished and later my mother told me he saw in Hungarian revolution revenge for my suffering. He could not believe the pictures of Avos agents hanging from ashes on Budapest streets.

In 1960, the majority of Russian satellites granted political amnesties: it was not because of compassion, but under pressure of Russians themselves. They nearly emptied their camps. In former Czechoslovakia few political prisoners remained and these were freed two years later. The process was slow. In the Soviet Union the release begun three years after Stalin’s fatal stroke, in Czechoslovakia four years after Soviet gestures. I was exempted from both amnesties. It appears I was the longest serving political prisoners in the country, one of the first arrested, one of the last freed. I admit, I deserved it to some extent, yet almost seven years after Soso’s Dzugasvilli funeral, years after Khrushchev’s speech to the XX congress and consequent relaxation of his regime seems too long. When my time arrive the only persons behind the bars were person sentenced for variously interpreted war crimes statutes. They were sentenced by People’s Courts. The name of the court explains everything.

My angry mother and sister, infuriated by my elimination from amnesties found a courageous attorney who attacked the Leopoldov authorities that for eleven years they were prejudiced against me. In his fillings I was a model of innocence. In this he was somewhat wrong. The attorney skillfully argued that my frequent trips to the solitary were evidence of their hatred, although the commandant could object it was proof how disobedient I was. To satisfy the prison officials and also my family, it was decided to transfer me to Kartouzy, an ancient monastery of the Carthusian Order, now used as medium rare prison. As in respect to the past, many priests and bishop were assigned to serve their sentences in rooms where centuries ago their spiritual ancestors were chanting their penance: “Miserere Nobis, Domine, Miserere Nobis . Immediately another , no less daring attorney started campaign for my release. He stressed that Leopoldov picture of me as a talented rebel could not be proved since many guards and five top commanders were replaced and the new officers relied on my file without possibility to verify whether they were truthful. I think the authorities were embarrassed. I was in prison longer than any killer arrested in the same time. When Lublanka and Gulag were empty how another socialist prison could hold people? Obviously, they welcomed my mother’s request for my parole and ordered me to appear before the parole board. I had some compunctions since the director of Kartouzy was lieutenant Kral who before was director of Leopoldov and had very bad experience with me.

There were some unfavorable present events, too, that endangered my chance before the commission: my propensity for not pleasing the administration must have been transferred from Leopoldov with me. The technical control prisoner in the prison industry was released and since all persons able to read micrometer and drafts went home my friend without my knowledge suggested me the civilian representative of the company. I crudely refused, but kept my reasons for myself. I was pressing on machine plastic switches for electronic devices and I said I do not want to change my job where I was happy. The technical control measured whether the parts were within tolerance and I would have to report prisoners to the guard. The guilty pressmen were not punished: the set up man corrected the press and usually that was the end of the affair. The repeated violators were transferred to glass works or some another place for the man has not the proper skill if he did not noted the faulty product. I could not report any of my fellows to the guards for any reason. For that I was too long imprisoned. After much haggling the sergeant sent me to solitary for indefinite time. It was the only punishment I received in Kartouzy, but the most hurtful. I might as well not to appear at the hearing, but I kept firmly refusing the excellent, prestigious and easy job, coveted especially in prison. They must not have anybody else for the function and were desperate.

I was in similar situation in Jachymov mines. The shift supervisor Fero Gabris had a not dangerous accident but had to seek medical help on the surface. Maybe at random, but more likely because of my personality, before he left he put me in full charge for the few hours remaining and told me to make sure everything is perfect and asked me to write daily shift report. This duty would not compromise my standing in the eyes of my friends. Fero was in high position and still as prisoner he was blameless and everybody wanted work on his shift. I was for the first time a boss, and suddenly of quite few people: we were about fifty. I need not give any order. All I did I checked the ceiling with a hammer whether there was not lose some rock that could fall and hurt someone and made sure the miners are careful with the explosives. Upon return to the surface I presented the detailed report in the office to engineer/technical academic title equivalent to PhD/ Smirnov, the Russian in charge of the mine. He was enthusiastic. Our production highly surpassed the average. I did not know what the average was, but Smirnov was enthusiastic. On the spot he appointed me as Gabris successor until he returns and then, as soon as there was opening he would put me in charge of a shift. In camp the position brought enormous advantages: extra food, more frequent letters and visits, and most important, protection from guards, who had to respect the supervisor as if he were a civilian. It also offered suspicion that the supervisor was in many cases a snitch.

I refused to take over the shift, even until Fero returns. Smirnov said they cannot waste people like me: “To drill and load a cart can any durak/dummy/ “ he argued. How many professors, attorneys, doctors and intellectual were drilling and loading carts underground! Smirnov was wondering: “Pochemu? Skazi.” “Why not? Tell me.” “Nemogu. Nekhochu, gospodin Smirnov.” I cannot. I do not want, Mr. Smirnov. He was trying sincerely to help me and could not understand. He was aware the prisoners in any position than rank and file had bad reputation as informers and correctly suspected it was my reason for refusal. He had feeling I would never sink that low and therefore he wondered on my refusal. After escape refusal to work or to work on assigned place was the most serious trespass. I tried to argue I had not experience, but he pointed out he had superiors less qualified than me. The supervision was simple: to check the roof for lose rocks and if not stable to order wooden supports, the check the direction of the face was straight, to makes sure the rails were laid flat at zero degree and not raising. All this could do any average miner with few months in the mine. He asked me about length of my sentence and when I told him he had no doubts about my attitude to communism. He just said: “Tak.” “Yes.” He said I must hate Russians, but his “Tak” betrayed he was Ukrainian. I pointed my favored story was Pikovaia Dama-The queen of Spades and recited names like Tolstoy, Lermontov, Dostoyevski, and few composers. His “tak” betrayed he was Ukrainian and I told him that when we were involved in war against Soviet Union we had mandatory Russian in school and I stressed our teacher was Ukrainian count Semen Gavrilovich Magdenko whom I praised in a warm monolog. As all Russians in Jachymov he knew thoroughly the Russian culture. At the end he promised me he will not press me and if I changed my mind his offer was open. Against the rules of non-fraternization he shook my hand and let me go. He never reported my reluctance to the promotion, but whenever he met me he asked the same question to which I always answered in the same words.

This lengthy expose explains my attitude towards my promotion in Kartouzy. The sergeant visited me in the hole and, like Smirnov, without any threat , tried to convince me to accept the assignment. I openly told him I cannot be responsible for punishment of my fellow prisoners, although I was aware no one ever was persecuted for errors in the production and he assured me of this practice himself. I did relent. I remembered the story when Caesar divorced his wife who was accused of adultery, but was found complete innocent. He explained that Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion. The sergeant assured me that my friends want me to accept the position and said that otherwise they would find someone who might cause them troubles. He suggested I try for one week and if I did not like I can leave without any consequence. I accepted and my friends were really happy. They were afraid they might have gotten a person who could snitch on them.

But there were doubts about my character. During my first stay in Leopoldov in 1949 in order to steal the prohibited newspaper from the floor commander office I volunteered to clean the office: the door was mostly open and I noticed the paper sticking from the trash basket. Since my first day twenty people had every day Pravda at their pleasure. It was our only communication with the outside world. Now I believe Kanta, the commander, was enough intelligent to allow me take the paper. The office room was so tiny that he could observe each my move. Being of the old guard and sufficiently anticommunist he closed both eyes to my theft. His brother was also a guard and recently I have read an article in political prisoners signed by name Kanta, most probably descendant of one of the brothers: it confirms my feeling from decades before they were on our side. A contributing factor was most of my extended family was living close to Leopoldov, in Sered, where Kanta had home.

Pravda kept coming as if we had subscribed it. Once an inmate told me that another man told him I was too much around the office. No one was aware where from I kept bringing the newspaper and in order to protect Kanta I could not reveal I was around the office to steal the paper. I did not offer any explanation, I did not show any excitement nor anger. I did not think about ungratefulness. To the disappointment of the commander who liked me because he had long known about my family in Sered I resigned the very next day. It was hard to explain my reason and he did not insist for an experienced guard who had observed many snitches he must have assumed I was suspected of being one of them.

At night my cellmates asked where the newspaper was. I answered they have to find a more skillful person to steal one when I was not qualified . Later the truth emerged. My replacement soon got smart and started to steal the paper like a professional, however, he was from another cell and my cell had to wait their turn. Now they discovered why I had volunteer. I did not wait until the newspaper was smuggled to our room. Through another connection and with my inventiveness I was able to receive the paper another source, but had to return it in one hour. Only my best friends have a short time to peruse it.

It might seem that my behavior was incorrect for I cut off my friends only source of information and it looks like a grandiloquent punishment of innocent prisoner

Lieutenant Kral must have been a prominent member of the party. I learned that in 1960 at the Olympic games in Rome he was member of the Secret Security detail charged with responsibility for prevention of the Czech and Slovak athletes’ defection. But he did not punish me for my promotion affair. I remained the technical inspector after the week long probation time expired. During my time no one prisoner was reported for his mistakes. Once I found someone’ products were outside the tolerance I notified the set up man who was a prisoner who corrected the press. The sergeant promised me not to interfere with my work and he kept his promise.

I had the opposite experience on the Elias mine in Jachymov in 1950. In camps the inmates were officially not allowed to use explosives: they were permitted to carry them, but the blasting was reserved for licensed specialists, nonetheless, everybody from directors of the enterprise to the last civilian on the ladder tacitly encouraged us to do our own blasting which because of ventilation was performed shortly before the end of shift. For one man it was practically impossible to blast several faces within short time. The faces were far from each other and some vertical so called chimneys required climbing ladders sometimes nearly fifty yards high. Usually the blast master had no more than thirty minutes to perform the blasting operation in several places. We, the prisoners, were not only tolerated as blast masters, but encouraged, and virtually forced to violate the rules and blast ourselves. We the explosive Donarit, fuses, loaded the holes and blasted: all this was the civilian’s duty. All guards respected the systematic breaking of the rules.

One day during the drilling a guard visited our face. I politely stop the drill. He greeted me with the ancient miners Zdar buh”, a phrase impossible to translate. Buh means God and Zdar is success. He casually turn our discussion to blasting. Neither my partner nor I were alarmed. He felt sorry for the blast master how many steps he has to climb to our chimney and suggested we should help him. Disturbed by his unexpected insinuations we answered that as prisoners we were not allowed to blast. After much haggling and more lying , he told me they all knew we were helping the civilians to blast and that was all right. There is nothing to it. “As a man to man, do you blast sometimes by yourself ?” We admitted we did. Not only he but all guards knew. It was not necessary hide the well known fact.

Returning to the camp we has to pass the guardroom. My partner was standing inside and the guard waved me to go in, too. In the office he told me he will write down my statement. What statement? “Concerning your admission that you were manipulating Donarit and fuses. “ I denied we ever touched any explosives. Rarely I was outplayed in situation like this, but here my partner was more audacious than I. He said: “ How could we blast when prisoners are not allowed to do it? “ With the speed we called “search system”, slowly looking for the letters, he typed the statement anyway. He gave it to us to read it and asked us to sign it. With disgust we refused both. With maniacal roar he asked us about our sentences. When I answered I was serving 25 years he wondered he did not noticed me before and threatened me with particular attention in the future. I assured him there was nothing extraordinary in me that warranted any attention and that this was the first time I was accused of causing troubles.

He must have been a new guard who did not knew the routine or was seeking promotion. In order to protect the civilians against the imbecile for some time we made arrangement with our blast master to fire our face, but reverted to the ancient practice soon. What amounted to a comedy our supervisor complained the director that a guard did not let us handle explosives and wanted prevent us from violating the rules.

At the parole hearing were present the prosecutor, a representative of the prison administration, and a woman from the community. Before me several others cases were handled but from the faces of the inmates I could not tell whether they were on their way home of back to the cell. From the three members of the board only the prosecutor had any influence-positive or negative but I am convinced that in criminal cases the meeting is important, but in political it is decided before by the prison officials and the hearing is just formality. None of the three members of the commission showed any animosity. The prosecutor was practically the only one speaking. It seemed they felt sympathy with me due to the fact that I was in prison nearly 16 years. The prosecutor read Kral’s favorable evaluation that although during my first years in prison I committed some minor violations but recently there were not any complaints against me recently. No one word about my escape events nor my numerous hunger strikes: surprisingly, my affair concerning the technical control job was not mentioned either, and it happened not long ago. The board had to justify before the higher authorities my possible release and by revealing my prison past they would hardly consider me worthy of their trust. The ignoring of my difficulties gave me hope: further, there was no one sentenced by the political State Court in prison anymore: I was the only one, the other thousands were two or three years home. Kral wrote that since my transfer to Kartouzy I was a good prisoner and worked diligently. In view of these facts the administration recommends my release. The prosecutor agreed with the recommendation and now at least one of the two members of the board had to join him. As probably arranged before, both of them supported his proposal. I thanked them and was dismissed. In the waiting room were sitting few other candidates: they on my face could read I was free.

In half an hour I was at the gate where Commandant Kral was waiting: for sure he was aware I would be released a wanted to release me personally, and unheard step. He had known me in Leopoldov many years ago and maybe he punished me few times but now with his evaluation wanted to do penance for the past. Prisoners were required to pay for each day in the punishment cell, which, in my case would have amount to an enormous amount. Almost always the authorities forfeited the debt. With me the lieutenant wanted announced the cancellation personally. He told me that on his own authority he decided to forgive the whole amount, shook my hand and said the last words I heard as prisoner: “Okamzite propustit”. “Release immediately”. Later, the exact words used Judge Ito when the jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty.

On my way to the Kartouzy railroad station I met the sergeant who had put me in the hole for refusing the promotion to the controller. He asked me where I was running and I realized that truly I was not walking but running pretty fast as if scarred I might be brought back. He must had also known I would be released on parole . he was joking whether I had escaped and appeared as friendly as the commander. In my borrowed civilian suit I could have past for an acceptable man who had fled the inhospitable surroundings. He also shook my hand wishing me good luck and said he hoped I would not come back. He pointed the way to the station and I unconsciously resumed my middle distance runner speed.

I took the train to Prague and there, on the former Wilson station I experienced the first miracle of freedom. I met my former cellmate from Leopoldov J and one of my best friends whether in prison of free Jirka Nyckalo who if not for another miracle would have been hanged like his accomplice . Another accomplice run or rather walked into the fire zone in a suicide attempt and was killed by the tower guard. They tried in Leopoldov to break through the gate in a seized truck. The steel bars stopped the truck and one of the most daring escape attempts was foiled. Had they drive faster the gate would have given up but it might have mean they might have loose the consciousness or die. Pepik Vanicek death was the second in my life I witnessed, both having been tragic. The other one I described in a book, and it is maybe more horrible. The first Jirka accomplice’s death was especially tragic for his mothers. Her other son was killed at the end of the war in the Prague revolution.

“Did you escape?” beside the guards these were the first words I heard as a free man. My answer was as well specific: “No. Did you?” I really meant it. We could not understand that the inmates can get out of prison any other way. The questions were as natural as my running to the station. What kind of man Nyckalo was is best illustrated by the fact that he was one of few of us who were excluded from both amnesties: these people were in the eyes of administration the worst enemies of the regime and we cannot do anything less than agree with them. His father told me a amusing story about his son who never touched a drink but on the graduation day he came home professionally drunk and when his parents were scolding him for his despicable way to enter life, he countered with “It is not and art not to get drunk, but to get drunk is a drudge. After the Russian invasion in 1968 he left Czechoslovakia, the only child of his parents, for the third country in history of his family: his father was born in Czarist Russia. It is peculiar that another of my friends, Viktor Zemljanski-Dikan with whose widow we are still in contact was born in Russia. Several of other friends were Russians and one of my favored professors was count Semen Gavrilovich Magdenko who taught me Russian.

After more than fifteen years I came home and found mama preparing for the laundry day in our yard. She welcomed me home: “Did you escape?” It reminds me of my grandson Duncan who watched too many movies. One day he was talking something about death and said: “You know, when people die…like when they kill them”. Instructed by the violence on the tube he could not imagine that people can die other way then by gun. My mother changed her mind and had doubts about my identity. Later she admitted that only after her question what I want to eat I answered promptly “fazulu”-“beans she was satisfied it was actually her son. Still she was not convinced I had escaped. My favored beans could convince her I was Ladislav Hodur, but beans could serve as evidence to my claim I came home with blessing of the law.

Many inmates helped me in prison, especially during my repeating troubles, inmates and some from administration. Victor Zemljanski in Kartouzy convinced the authorities I was the best choice for the post of the technical control post. I am grateful for his help despite ending in the hole. I remember the director Smirnov who did not report me for refusing the job of supervisor which could have a catastrophic consequence for my welfare. I have to thank all participants in the tunnel enterprise in the camp on forced labor whose denial of my leadership in the digging prevented the most severe punishment. My name appeared repeatedly during the interrogation but when followed the logical question if I was the leader, all of them refused to identify me as such. I will never forget prisoner Kosturik, Leopoldov the dentist who nearly attacked one of the toughest guards in defense of me and his now modified and nearly forgotten Hippocratic Oath. I was about to lose my second wisdom tooth with three of four roots. The first one had pulled in Bratislava by prisoner Dr. Ferdinand Subik, who in Katyn was member of the international commission investigating the murder of 8000 Polish officers and was professor of pathology at the Slovak University, one of the nation’s best poets whose Surany I know still by heart and have the text framed. When he found time he was Surgeon General. Besides, he was born in Kuklov, short distance from my village. Anesthetic was a rare entity in Leopoldov while I was in unbearable pain. Because of infection Kosturik had no choice but to extract the tooth. During the procedure in pain I accidentally kicked the instrument table, knocking the tools on the floor. The guard started to yell and threatened me he will take me to the solitary. I was afraid he would hit me and so was the dentist who returned scream for scream and was hollering on the officer more than he himself. Kosturik, looking deranged yelled I held long enough but the pain is terrible. He was cussing communism, president Gottwald and the government for not providing anesthetic even for the most extreme cases. The guard accidentally approached my chair and the dentist thinking he wanted to hit me barred him with his body, waving his hands, one holding his tool looking like pliers. His mouth was screaming “No! NO! Leave him alone!”, but his eyes cried “Murder!” Kosturik pulled the tooth and gave me few days off work, but nothing happened after the incident. The officer was not very popular among the other guards and he must have to realize he went too far: he must have understood that I was in pain and could not to control myself. I did not violated any rules and did not do anything that warranted punishment. There were many others who at their own risk eased my fate and it is too late to thank some of them: now only God can reward them for me.

After my release I had to serve six months in the Army. I found out that even after sixteen years of total communism his secret opponents survived in the unexpected positions which occupants were thought to be dedicated comrades, triple checked and vetted. Without asking two Majors assigned me to a garrison closest to my town which was a serious violation of the Army basic regulations. Besides, I was former political prisoner and now I was allowed to serve eleven miles from my village. They certainly bet their career. They crossed all possible lines. One of them of them advised me to get married and have as soon as possible which would relax my supervision under which all former political prisoners were kept. This was easy since at that time I was already married and my wife was few months pregnant.

The commander of the garrison showed the same sympathy as the majors and his whole attitude towards me pointed to another example of silent resistance. If such opponents of communism served in the army, what about civilians. To my embarrassment Major Kaspar made me “soldier of the month”. On that occasion I received a book with dedication from the commander. I wonder what would happen to him if some fanatic officer discovered my reward. He probably knew it would look nice in my files and wanted help me. Despite everything I am grateful the three officers.

Now comes the dessert. I was assigned to the elite unit , the Civil Defense, trained to deal with riots, civil disturbances, and other internal troubles. We were also trained to deal during eventual war with limiting the radiation after the atomic attacks. The Civil Defense cooperated with the Worker Militia, an armed arm of the communist party that consisted of the most reliable cadres. I found an explanation why I was sent to this special unit: the good majors wanted me to be close to my wife and mother and accidentally the closest detachment was the Civil Defense they assigned me to the coveted unit. With all this procommunist achievement I was ready for joining the State Security.

In the meantime Victor was arrested when trying to take his fiancé Vera into West Germany.

I was released in 1964 and since that time until I left the Country in 1968 I had only one problem, but one that could have lend me back to prison. Victor, my friend from Kartouzy came to visit us and asked me to help him to escape to Austria. I was living less than four miles from the border and although now there were many dangerous obstacles my knowledge of the area offered advantage. After my release I was seriously thinking to flee, but because of my mother and other family I decided against the idea. It was horrible prospect for at that time there was no sign of communist degradation, just the opposite. Only six years ago Brezhnev brutally invaded Hungary, they were in Afghanistan and if Poland or East Germany showed signs of dissatisfaction, Russians were quick. It was different border now than fifteen years ago when we used to swim to the Austrian side. Now there were several security zones with barbered wire, sentries with dogs, and towers. The access was limited to residents, which I was, but that would not help against scientifically defended border.

This I explained to Victor. I described the layout, where most probably the guards were stationed . I warned him never to run, even when the river would be on sight, but if he was discovered it was better to abandon the attempt and with exception the border guards barred his way, always run away from the border since the soldiers will run towards it. I asked him to start crawling about a two miles after he crossed the highway not far from our home. Crawling is slower but safer. Most important if he spots more than one guard he must abandon the mission: it means there is some action in progress. Later I would read about the iron rule, violation of which cost six lives on Mount Everest: if not beyond a certain point by fourteen hours zero turn unconditionally back or the climber or the climber has not chance to return to the safety of camp. Even if it is the best May or June sunshine, there is only one way: back. One of the climbers asked what he will have to do if at fourteen zero he is hundred and fifty feet from the summit. “The same what you would have to do when you are fifty feet from the top of the world: you make face-about and walk back. Everest will be there tomorrow but not you to climb it.” It seems an exaggerated requirement, but bear in mind that on a mountain, not only in Himalayas, it might take an hour to climb several yards.

One night Victor was on his way. Half an hour after crossing the highway he was challenged by the guards who ordered him to stop and when he started running they opened fire. He was a trained athlete: hockey player, gymnast, and he excelled in other sports so that he initially escaped. Moreover, in darkness it is difficult to hit a target even with sub machine gun. He was extremely courageous, but in the end they caught him. Before his attempt he was living with us and once I heard about the shooting I realized who had been the object. I also trusted Victor would not implicate me. He denied I had any connection with his attempt. With my past and the fact I was living on the border the agents would believe the Cinderella story rather than his fairytale. Investigation of escapes abroad was a serious crime and as such investigated thoroughly. Among my parole condition was that I would avoid any contact with any former political prisoners.

Shortly after Victor arrest my mother had a visitor. An agent of the security and asked what I was doing . His questions concerned my family mostly and if I go to public places. She explained that in all my life I did not drink one bottle of alcohol and besides going to movies and soccer game I spend the time home: never once I was in a tavern. He told her to make sure I continue in the same way because my first duty is my family. Thus I will not be bothered by anybody. I was eliminated as suspect in Viktor’s attempt and also overlooked was my association with a former prisoner: the agent said that if I behave no one has any interest in making my life difficult and no one will. He said that he just wanted make sure everything was all right with me. He did not took any notes. Significantly, I was not called witness to his trial.

Again someone had protected me. They had a case against me and this was a warning to avoid any dangerous adventures. The visit of the agent served to make me aware that they know I was helping Viktor, but let the affair go: after Army, I learned that there was opposition against the red regime even in the State Security. Only people who lived during the worst times of communism understand my point. The regime that executed hundreds of innocent victims, whose prisons and camps forced labor where 99 % of political prisoners were innocent, a country where for violation of the borders could the perpetrator receive fifteen years, where for sixteen years ruled terror worse than in Soviet Union, high officers and Security agents in high position silently conspired against the cruel government. Then came the communism with “human face.” If communism has a face, it is just human mask.

After his release the Victor Zemljanski smuggled in the trunk of his car his wife through three borders to the West. He studied in Germany and became a dentist. Unfortunately he died of lung cancer before he was fifty. His fighting spirit did not leave him when dying: he tore all the tubes which my nurse had called spaghetti and they had to tie him to his last bed. At that time he was aware he had short time to live, so he knew what he was doing and what he wanted.

I was working in a quarry near our village and since there was neither train nor bus available I was riding beside feet my favored means of transportation, a bicycle. The night of my fortieth birthday an event with international impact changed my native country and my personal life and the change is lasting for forty-six years. On the highway where Victor had been arrested, I noticed the tracks of tank belt: probably a military exercise. There was high voltage tension between my country and Russia in political circles circulated rumors of cooperative maneuvers between the two countries. At the railroad crossing milk truck was laying on its side in the ditch. I asked the crossing guard. He responded: “You do not know? Russian have occupied us.”

I returned home and woke my wife. We turned on radio and listened to desperate calls for international intervention. The anchors who were making the calls were ago convicted communist, so now it was communists against communists. Schools and factories were closed and in the cities mass demonstrations of infuriated, courageous people took place. We naively believe that the Powers will undertake and armed action against another Power because of a small country. After thirty years Chamberlain came back: “We will not go to war because of a small unknown Middle-Europe. To his disappointment Germany did, although for another Middle –Europe country. The idea of passive resistance led the nation to action. The directional signs were changed: the occupants instead going North might ended up going West. Armed resistance would be pointless as testified the example of the massacres in Hungary. It would be a suicide, nevertheless, some people would always commit it. Anyway, weapons were not available and the Army had not chance.

For this I have spent fifteen years in prison and camps? To stand helpless, with hands in the pockets? In anger I realized the history was being made without me, history was cheating me, who had the primary right to take part in it, and not a non-speaking role. Should I “ to stand by the road and salute the victors when they march by?” I felt I was not even standing but sleeping. The British author who wrote this words must have never lost since the beginning of the poem asks: “Give me, dear God, that in the battle of life I will have the courage to risk and win, and that it be according to the law…” the rest is the standing by the road. I remember a book from a French author where he describe a weak man who when arrested betrays all his Maquis fellows. After release he desperately wants to redeem himself ready for any sacrifice, even his life. The war ends before he could blow some bridge over Loire and he has missed his chance forever. He had to live the rest of his life with a knife embedded in his conscience. If I did not do anything, I would forever suffer like the French. I did not to miss my payday for the prison and another opportunity hardly comes: the future proved I was right.

There is an axiom that God gives every man only one opportunity to become immortal. My opportunity was now. I rode my bike to a four-way crossing on the main Bratislava-Brno-Prague road and in vain searched for a road sign that was not changed. All were pointing to wrong direction. In anger I wiggled one of them till it got lose and threw it on the grass. It was better than just to change the direction. I was feeling like if I blew up a Russian fifty tons tank. Many find my act ridiculous and childish . Ask Russians.

There was no question about remaining in Slovakia. I might get easily in trouble. The borders were practically open. The furious Slovak guards did not care what the people were doing in the fire zone. To obtain the passport was not problem, but I was a former political prisoner. Had I was refused it, we could go through the unguarded border on land. Russians did not care at all. It appears they were under orders to avoid any violence since we were a socialist country and their former faithful ally, but they still were victims and I keep the soil from the grave of one of them. I went to check the things in Bratislava. I was walking close to my former school with few people. A month ago only selected citizens were allowed to travel to the free countries. Almost never, both husband and wife could take vacation in Germany or Austria. Family vacation with children were forgotten art. I read a report from Soviet Union. With sufficient connection or a massive bribery the citizen could obtain an apartment, car o position, however, a Russian pud of gold would not get a passport.

I filled and application and received an appointment in two weeks. In the passport office I was admitted to a middle-age man, major Plecho. In the application I stated I wanted to go to Vienna for a friend’s wedding. Unknown to me there was a rumor that the easiest way to obtain the passport was to state in the application as a reason for travel a wedding. In fact majority of the application complied with the rumor. In my application I admitted I had been sentenced by State Court since it was obvious every person asking to travel abroad was thoroughly checked just as a routine, despite the relaxation of the procedure. He was joined by another major. Both were pleasant and in the end Major Plecho asked me what I will do if I will not get the document. At first I wanted to be dramatic and say that one morning the border guards might discover and overturned boat in Morava with five bodies floating by, but immediately I realized it was one of the most stupid, showy, and pretending thoughts of my life. How I would feel if I was in his place? Had I told him the theatrical threat for sure he would not issue me the passport. He was used to ask this question at the conclusion of each interview probably and making him a potential murderer after the almost assurance I will get the passport would be an unpardonable and rude insult. In the entirely excluded case some of his superiors would reject my application I had a safe way on the land from Bratislava, which lies on the Austrian border. he was as aware as I that if I was refused the paper I would prefer the land to Morava. With three children I would never risk a river, and this he knew also.

Naturally, both officers did not believe my wedding story and as I was leaving Plecho stopped me and told me: “Be frank with me. Tell me as man to man will you return to Czechoslovakia?” “I will never come back.” “Your passport will be ready tomorrow at two o’clock.”

I remembered “man to man” story from the mine and the blasting when being frank could cost me hole or maybe a transport to maximum security prison.

My wife and four of my children since visited Slovakia, my wife twice, but I am keeping my word to Major Plecho. Communism fell yet communists remained. Marina Tsvetayeva wrote verses: “Where are the swans?” “Swans have left.” “Where are the ravens?” “Ravens have stayed.” Maybe these words led her hands to tie the rope around her neck when she hanged herself.

When I was on Victor’s funeral in Germany, I came as far as the wire separating her from Czech Republic and could step over the low fence, but I did not. My children offered to buy me a trip to the country three of them were born, but with the communists still behind the scenes, I did not go.

My wife picked the passports, and after waiting in front the with the wedding guests overwhelmed Austrian Embassy for the visa we left the country of our birth. Plecho advised her to leave immediately since Russians can seal the borders any time. On September 28 1968 we were on our way. Everything was fine. We arrived to the border control town. With our custom official came two Russian soldiers with sub machine guns hanging over their arms. When the Russians were checking our documents, in hear three year old innocence our daughter asked: " These are the Russian svine?" She just repeated what all were saying. My wife covered with her hand Martuska's mouth and the child must have wondered what misdeed she have committed. "Svine" means pigs both in Slovak and Russia besides other Slavic language. The angry faces of the soldiers manifestly showed they heard the words, but cleverly pretended they did or did not understand. They saw a child, and very cute one at that, and did the best of the embarrassing situation-nothing. We were less than a mile from freedom and if they would have expelled us from the train, it would have been double pain and we would have try to leave illegally after all. Among us were mostly future refugees like and they upset me by being angry at our girl. I did not punish her for her experience in the challenging international affairs was limited by her age, and her diplomatic ability was no better than mine.

One hour later, after crossing the same bridge where I ninety years jumped from the train on my mission, at the Vienna Sudbanhoff we reported to the on the station permanently present immigration official and asked for political asylum which the next day was granted.

We were placed first to a refugee family camp and then transferred to Neuhaus where we lived in a hotel. On Christmas Eve we arrived to New York, to our present homeland where by now I have spent more than half of my horribly uneventful life. Only when we landed on Kennedy Airport I felt assured. Like the infantile belief that with the uprooting the road sign after the occupation I did something useful, during the flight I thought that Russians still could shoot us down. I am not a paranoid, but I have an uncertain poetic soul.

When we live in California before going to Disneyland I took my children to UCLA and told them one day maybe they would be students there. I always desired to study someplace abroad and now my internationally inexperienced daughter graduate really from UCLA as I promised her when she was seven years old.

I had given Major Plecho a contact address to my wife friends in the USA. Through them I received from his wife a letter from West Germany with sad news. With her and two children he had fled Czechoslovakia, but soon had died.

In the United States I fulfilled the promise I had given to my mother during the most difficult times of my life. As an adult I graduated from college with three degrees.

I lived in Rochester, N.Y., Oregon, Santa Monica and Culver City in California. Two of my children were born in this country. I was elected member of Phi Kappa Phi, and I cherish the Letter of Merit "for the superior quality of the thesis. You have demonstrated superior scholarship and have made very real to the expansion of Criminal Justice literature..." I suppose the thesis was worth the letter. I passed a strictly time controlled computer test and was accepted, in September 2006, to the International High IQ Society. For admission the Society require score that ranks the candidate among the top two per cent of the population.

One day in the library I noticed a large size book with title MAT. I thought it was a mathematic text. MAT stood for Miller Analogies Test. I took the book home and just because I encountered analogies test Online and at GRE test decades ago I tried several questions and later the whole test. While working on the test I discovered it was accepted under some circumstances by Mensa. The circumstances were score of ninety-eight percent or better on the supervised test. I was aware what the Society was and therefore did not try for membership. After some time I constantly answered close to ninety questions which was enough for university, nonetheless, about ten percent behind Mensa circumstances.

In one of the practice tests book for the Miller Analogies Test I noticed a warning in the form of the explanation that this test is a test the candidate never had taken before and never will. It consists of a hundred and twenty questions from which twenty are experimental and do not count. The enemy is not the questions, the enemy is time. The time is thirty second per question and was written by Marquise de Sade. The questions can be taken from approximately twenty-five fields, mathematics not omitted. The essence of the test consist of finding analogy to given words. To explain the test is nearly as difficult as to take it. For example, the preparation test confirmed what I and everybody else knows that pahoehoe is in Hawaian lava. No one should have problems with square root of minus one third. Not all questions are that hard: some are harder. At the test I was unusually calm: the test is required by some employers and by some universities as requirement to admission to the PhD program. I did not wanted go to school nor was I looking for job. I wanted to find out how much intelligence I have left after so long time spent in prison. I felt as if my brain was telling me not to worry, that there was nothing to it, that the test was a kids game.

I did not doubt my results would be above average but not over ninety-two percentiles. In order to see my abilities I registered for March 14,009 test. In the preparation I took approximately two hundred tests, each asking a hundred or hundred and twenty questions. It would be more than twenty thousand questions. Each of them contained three given terms and four terms from with I have to find the analogical word to one of the given terms. Before looking for the answer I had to match two terms of the given three. Each question containing seven terms simply means that I had to deal with one hundred and forty thousand words, most of them repeated many times since each test I took several times. On the market there’re are only about 60-70 tests available. I studied for months several hours a day of night. It is not my intent to shock the readers, I want only warn my potential followers and unbelievers that this form of slavery suicide is maybe not worth the effort. My twenty thousand questions did not help me at the actual test. Only one or two have I encountered in preparation, one of them from classics.

My tests taught me to manage the time, however. When towards the end of the test, the supervisor announced "five minutes", I looked on my watch and the wall clock, and then on my answer book. I had exactly ten questions to go. With thirty second per question to answer ten questions takes exactly five minutes.

My score was 99 percentile. I am sure no one in my age achieved this result, and I doubt anybody eighty years old took this test ever. For my success I am thankful before anybody and anything else to the generation of my ancestors, those generation preserved their genes they gave me as inheritance. Some influence had the environment, but if you live in a conservatory you need not necessary become Lind or Destin. Altogether more than sixteen years I have spent in prison. As a civilian I have spent four years in quarries and mines, and almost thirty years as a waiter. None of my jobs can be classified as conductive to learning.

In computer class in 2006 I was ashamed I did not know how to type, and also because I wanted to write history of my family, I learned to type. Beside computer class I took fingerprints class and investigation of crime scene-practically murder investigation. My average was 3.66, my age 80. On the basis of my MAT score I was offered membership in Mensa.

I am here for my mother waited when no one else did any more. My mother knew how to wait like nobody else. We have killed many deaths. I came home and no matter what day it has been, it must have been Sunday. "Because for a slave it is hard to die before he accomplishes his revenge" wrote Ivan Krasko on the end of his "Song of a slave ." When I accomplished mine was when I accepted San Diego Mensa literary award in category of Unpublished Memoires.

This is what happened.